As very few media outlets reported last week, Australia has a new Chief Scientist. Professor Penny Sackett comes to the role from the ANU where she was Director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories (2002 – 2007).
According to her CV, Professor Sackett is “a physicist by training and an astronomer by profession,” who “considers herself an educator by inclination.”
She holds a PhD in theoretical physics and has received certification to teach science and mathematics at primary and secondary school levels. In addition to research on three continents, her career includes science journalism and service on Australian, Dutch, European, and US science advisory panels.
Professor Sackett comes to the role at a moment when climate science regularly tops the news, meaning a significant chunk of her working day will not be spent looking at data from various nebulae. Rather, it will be spent working on the far more earthly problem of climate change.
An extensive interview with the ABC’s Monica Attard last weekend confirmed as much:
MONICA ATTARD: You said earlier that you thought that if people had these issues properly explained to them of necessity being a change of lifestyle to help the issue of climate change that they might be more accepting. Do you see it as your role as chief scientist to get out there and explain to you know average people in the street what would be entailed here?
PENNY SACKETT: Absolutely. I think that is very clearly a role of the chief scientist, certainly now that it’s been made a full time post and I’ve made it clear to the extent that the number of hours in the day allow that I want to make it a priority that in formulating the evidence, the scientific evidence of matters of importance to Australia that that information is not only communicated to the government but to the Australian people.
But in the context of Australian politics, climate change means more than carbon pollution, melting glaciers and homeless polar bears. It’s also code for “emissions trading scheme”. That’s arguably the chief reason that she is now the Chief Scientist. Sackett is a communicator, an educator, who understands how to sell the sacrifices of tackling climate change.
MONICA ATTARD: From what you know, do you think that Australians will be willing to wear the cost of those sort of fundamental changes in the way we scientifically look at such an important issue as climate change?
PENNY SACKETT: I believe that the people of Australia if they have the choices that confront them clearly articulated in an open atmosphere of dialogue and if that is underpinned with scientific evidence then I believe that Australians will make the choice that is the best for them and for their children. Absolutely.
Sackett will be in the hot seat through at least the developmental stages of the government’s emissions trading system. And if you can sell to funding bodies ideas like the Giant Magellan Telescope, you are well equipped to sell something as economically difficult as Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Is that overselling the role of the Chief Scientist and unfair to Professor Sackett? Or is it underselling politics of the appointment?
